Travel Journal

Larabanga - Damongo - October 19-20 - To pee or not to pee

(Sunday 21 October 2007) by Karin

Last day of the work week already. Time goes fast. Already three weeks have passed.
In the afternoon Amama takes us to visit some people in the village. Ghanaians here are warm, friendly and sociable people. They tend to take life at a relaxed pace, a bit too relaxed for me at times. You exchange greetings with people you meet, even if you do not know them. They always laugh when I talk in Kamara. At first I thought it was because of my pronounciation but I soon discovered it is because they really love it that we speak their language. I had prepared some baby clothes as most of the families we visited just had a baby and they could use some help. Babies do seem to be much smaller here then at home but most of them look healthy and the mothers were happy with the clothes. Danielle had a great laugh after one of the babies first threw up over me and then managed to pee on me. Diapers are not used here and it had to happen at some point. The last two, twins, looked healthy but very small. I thought they were premature babies and then discovered they are already 4 months old. The little girls forearm is not much bigger than my finger. The mother died after she delivered and the family doesn't have money to buy baby powdered milk so they feed them a kind of porridge which isn't nutritious enough for them. She is a beautiful, very alert baby though with a beautiful smile.
At lunch time it was so hot that even after a shower I was still dripping with sweat but it got cooler in the afternoon so hopefully it will rain tonight. There is no more rainwater left and I need to do some laundry and I do like a shower in the morning.

It is now Saturday morning and not a drop of rain has fallen. I know that the rain season is just about over but after looking at the sky and clouds yesterday I was sure it would rain. No luck.
But maybe I spoke to soon. It suddenly got very windy and by now I know that this means that we better bring everything inside if we don't want it to fly away and/or get soaked and yes...... a few minutes later it pours. I eat my breakfast in my room and hope it does not rain tooooo long as we wanted to go to the market in Damongo and I wanted to buy some baby milk. For once I'm glad the bus is late. But again I am amazed at the amount of people they can put in the bus.
Internet is our first stop but no luck ..... no electricity so we walk to the market and find out that because of the rain nobody is ready yet. We wait for a while and decide to go check the internet cafe again. Still no electricity. Damn rain, couldn't that wait till tomorrow. So back to the market where we stroll around for a while and buy some lunch. Another wait for the bus now so let's go check and see if there is electricity yet. Really no luck with internet today.

When the bus finally shows up it still has to pick up people at the market. We sit and wait for more than an hour in a hot bus and my patience at this point is non-existing. Aaaaarrrgggghhhhhhhhhhh. I get really crabby. Next time I'll pay for a cab. And when the bus finally leaves, overloaded, it suddenly stops...... oh no.... we might just have to take a cab anyway. Happens two more time but it does bring us home. Time for a rest and calm down.
I visit the twins again and bring the family some baby milk. The evening is spent watching frogs hop around eating cockroaches (I sure do love frogs) and visiting with Melicky and Yahaya (some of the local boys).

Hi Laila,
You should have seen the frog hop and the cockroach run. That sure was a funny sight . The frog won and I'm glad because I don't like cockroaches too much. And they are really big here .
Karin
PS. I am really happy to receive so many messages from you .
[ Reply to Karin]